


All That Matters

by imachar



Series: The Weight of a Man [13]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, M/M, Mutual Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-03
Updated: 2011-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:30:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imachar/pseuds/imachar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Pike the bad day starts with Kirk cheating on the Kobayashi Maru and ends in the Enterprise's sick bay - largely Boyce POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Matters

**Author's Note:**

> Beta : skyblue_reverie

He's hitting the punching bag so hard it's taking a full two seconds to swing back into position for another hit and with every slam of his fists, Chris Pike is swearing - a long, low growling litany of obscenity that is surprising even him with its inventiveness. He knows it’s been a long, long time since he’s been this angry, perhaps not since Command made him give up the _Yorktown_ and take an extended assignment on Earth. That time he hit a bulkhead so hard he broke six bones in his hand - Phil had been extraordinarily pissed at him - so he’s at least grateful that he seems to have matured enough in the last five years to find a more appropriate target for his anger. The room is mercifully free of any of the building’s other tenants and he’s breathing hard after fifteen minutes, and his hands - taped but not gloved - are starting to burn when he hears the low, familiar voice at the door to the apartment complex's gym.

"I heard you had a bad day. I didn't realize it was quite this bad."

Phil Boyce is leaning against the glass door and Chris puts out a hand to stop the bag from body checking him as he turns around and runs one now very sore hand through his hair, sweat spattering across the synthetic floor as he wipes it down the back of his neck. And he shakes his head with a sigh. "I swear, he's going to have to graduate early or I'm going to fucking kill him."

"What did he do this time?"

There’s no need for either of them to utter the name of the transgressor, only one person - well, other than Phil himself - could ever get Chris this angry. "He cheated - I don't care how clever he was; I don't care _what_ he fucking thinks about the no-win scenario; he fucking cheated. He hacked the central sim core and somehow changed the test parameters for the _Kobayashi Maru_."

"Inventive." Phil makes his way into the room, picking up the towel that Chris has left draped across a weight bench and slinging it over his shoulder.

"I don't fucking _care_...the little motherfucker cheated. And worse than that, he involved another cadet. I spent forty fucking minutes persuading Komack that Cadet Gaila, who has a certain talent in engineering, and might therefore have been assumed to be complicit in the act, was not a deliberate participant in Jim Kirk's latest fuck up." Chris looks like he's about to return to hitting the bag and Phil reaches out and grabs his hand.

"Enough, Chris, you're going to do real damage if you keep this up."

Chris pulls the hand back sharply, doing a masterful job of controlling the sudden flare of temper at the interruption and slides down the wall to sit on the floor, fingers tugging absently at his damp hair. "Christ, she was scared...he told her to open a time delayed comm at 15:20, right in the middle of the simulation, and it downloaded a patch to the sim program that dropped the shields on the warbirds - made the rest of the simulation go _very_ quickly."

And then he leans back and looks up at Phil, the anger subsiding just slightly to be replaced by resigned bemusement. "Why would she do that? And how the hell am I supposed to protect these idiots from their own stupidity?" He knows he’s sounding just a little petulant, and he hates that it makes him seem like a sullen teenager, but at least he’s calming down a little - Phil’s presence is good for him that way.

"Is she sleeping with him? If she is I suspect she thinks that she loves him."

Chris shakes his head again. "That makes it even worse. She’s an idiot and he’s a prick. What the fuck am I supposed to do with him, Phil?"

"Do you think you were wrong about him?"

There's not even a heartbeat of hesitation as Chris shakes his head. "Absolutely not. He could be the best thing to happen to Starfleet in fifty years."

"Hey don't sell yourself short - I remember you thirty years ago." It hasn't been quite thirty years, but Chris isn't going to argue the point, his anger subsiding to a low simmer in the face of Phil's quiet support. But he still shakes his head; however much Chris might appreciate Phil’s faith in him, he’s not exactly unbiased and Chris has a brutally clear-eyed perspective on his own abilities and those of the cadets around him, especially those in whom he takes a special interest.

"No, with a few years’ experience in the black he could leave me in the dust. This doesn’t make him any less the potentially brilliant captain he could be - but fuck, not if he can't learn discipline." Chris has pushed himself up the wall again and steps away from the punching bag, slowly unwinding the tape from his knuckles. "I thought I was getting somewhere with him - he hasn't fucked up like this all year.” He drops the wadded mass of tape into the recycling chute and scrubs his fingers through a riot of sweaty curls. “Dammit Phil, he has to learn that he isn't a law unto himself. He did something today that should by all rights get him bounced from the Academy - changing that sim was no different than hacking Koreshi's files and stealing the answers to the quantum mechanics final. And it will only be by the grace of God and some heavy lobbying by me, Singh, Kennedy and Restrepo that we have any chance of stopping that from happening." Now Chris is just weary, and he takes the towel that Phil holds out to him, rubbing it briskly through his hair and then throwing it in the general direction of the laundry bin.

“Have you talked to Jim himself?”

“Oh hell yes, only briefly, but he seems to be under the impression, as usual, that we are all just too stupid to appreciate his brilliance. He’s convinced that there’s no such thing as a no-win scenario; that there’s no situation he can’t control through his genius and force of will.”

“I remember you being a little like that once.” Phil’s tone is completely neutral, and Chris knows he’s not trying to pick a fight and measures the tone of _his_ response accordingly.

“Yes Phil – a _little_ like that – I never believed that I could control every situation, and if I ever had any illusions about my own omnipotence then that incident off _Zalda_ sure as hell cured me of that kind of thinking.” Chris pauses, shivers at the thought of those four days in the hands of Klingon pirates, and tilts his head as he asks, bemused again, “Didn’t we have that conversation with Jim over dinner one night last year? I clearly remember rehashing four of the worst days of my life for him, just to demonstrate that there are situations that you can’t talk or shoot or think your way out of - sometimes you just have to endure, prepare to die and hope to get lucky. Did he hear any of that, or does he just think it doesn’t apply to him?”

It’s a whole series of rhetorical questions and even as Chris is talking Phil pulls him into a loose embrace, his hand rubbing light circles on the back of Chris' sweat-soaked t-shirt. As always it’s like coming home, a warm security that coaxes Chris to relax just a fraction, his forehead dropping onto Phil’s shoulder, face turned into the curve of Phil’s neck as he relishes the feel of a day’s worth of stubble against his lips and draws a slow, deep breath, forcing himself to some measure of calm. He releases the breath as a long sigh as Phil runs his hand gently into his hair and orders quietly, but implacably, "Ten laps, sauna, and shower. I'll make dinner and see you in 45 minutes."

****

Chris isn't really hungry, the exercise and the sauna have taken his anger and it replaced with a weary tension, but he appreciates the warmed over lasagna from the previous weekend, picks in faintly desultory fashion at the salad until Phil smacks him with a fork… "Eat the fucking greens." …and finally begins to relax as he makes his way through two thirds of a bottle of Napa Syrah.

He’s slumped comfortably in his chair, the slight buzz of just enough alcohol lending a fuzzy warmth to his mood when Phil finally brings the conversation back to Jim Kirk and the _Kobayashi Maru_ : "So, what are you going to do?"

The chair tipped back at a precarious angle Chris is staring at Phil over the lip of his wine glass, one eyebrow raised in an expression of slightly resigned martyrdom. "What I always do, call in a few more favors, hope I have enough credit left with the more intransigent members of the Academic Affairs committee to finagle him another chance, and hope, _again_ , that this is the last time I have to do it.” He rolls the stem of his wine glass between his fingers and chews on his lower lip for a moment before going on - pensive and suddenly very serious. “I still want to know what’s going on in his head – he had to know he was going to get caught – and I _know_ he knows what he did was wrong.”

There had been a momentary flash of panic in Jim’s eyes when Chris, alerted to the problem by a very pissed off comm from the Chief of Assessment for Simulations, had caught up with him in the quad after the simulation was over. The panic had lasted only a second, covered immediately by Jim’s customary cocky bluster, but it had been enough for Chris to know that Jim understood that he was busted. It had been too public a location for him to do anything more than try to get a brief account of Jim’s version of the events and all that had done was piss him off even more. There were few things Chris appreciated less than a cadet implying that the accumulated experience of the entire academy instructional staff, Chris included, was worthless in the face of his extraordinary brilliance - and that was exactly what Jim had done. It was pure bravado; Chris knew that there was real nervousness under the surface, but he didn’t have time to dig deeper, already deep in damage control mode. So he’d sent Jim on his way and retired back to his office to arrange meetings with Komack and with the instructors that he knew would back him if it came to a fight over Jim’s future at the Academy. It had been about an hour later that word had come that the simulation programmer and chief assessment instructor was calling for a full public Judicial Board hearing, and then his temper had finally gotten the better of him and he’d left the building for the day - he was smart enough to know that he wasn’t going to do anyone any good in this mood.

With a few hours’ perspective on it Chris is just tired and irritated now, as much with his potential new XO as with the chief offender himself. “Oh fuck, I suppose I'm going to have to have a word with Spock too. He's really got his panties in a knot over this - another fucking ego-maniac - no emotional response my ass, he’s pissed and everyone is going to know about it. He’s the one who pushed for a public J-board hearing.” Chris is relaxed enough to smile slightly, the corner of his mouth quirking up just a fraction. “Apparently he’s taking it even more personally than I am - but if he's going to be a hard-ass over this then I may have to reconsider whether I want to offer him XO on the _Enterprise_ \- it may be better to keep him at Science and offer Mitchell the XO slot. This kind of inflexibility could be a little hard to work with."

"Don't even go there yet - you've still got a couple of months to finalize all that...just concentrate on the judicial hearing. When is it?"

"Tomorrow."

"Oh, they aren't wasting any time, are they?"

Chris shakes his head. "No. I have meetings with Nogura, Komack, Farmer and Osnabruck lined up one after the other starting at 07:00 tomorrow; I see Jim at 11:30; then I go into conclave with Kennedy and the rest over lunch and the hearing is scheduled for 16:00.” He drains the last of the wine in his glass and holds it out for a refill. “It’s going to be a motherfucker of a day."

As he's talking Phil is clearing the table, dumping the dishes into the recycler and popping the cork on another bottle of wine. "Well sweetheart, there is nothing you can do about any of that tonight - so I suggest a little more wine; a little background blues..." he flexes the fingers of the hand not holding the wine bottle, "...and if you're really lucky, maybe a massage." His smile is wide and his expression an inviting mix of concern and enticing promise, the lines gathered tight at the corners of eyes that have lightened from slate to denim-blue, and Chris smiles and remembers exactly why he fell in love with this man.

****

It doesn't surprise either of them when the massage turns into sex. The feel of Phil’s hands on his bare skin is a surefire way to get Chris hard, although it takes longer than usual tonight, the fatigue of exercise and anger slowing his responses. But long before Phil finishes working his strong surgeon's hands over the deep knots in his back Chris is bucking shallowly against the mattress to trying to create a little friction to ease the ache in his cock. Phil lays a hand against the small of his back and presses down gently, putting a halt to the shallow thrusts.

“Patience - just lie there and let me take care of you - I’ll let you know when you’re ready for more.” Phil’s voice is a low, soft whisper, so full of care and so utterly sure that he knows exactly what Chris needs right now and it makes Chris shiver and relax into the mattress. From the first time they met and fucked their way through a long, slightly debauched weekend Phil has been a master at knowing exactly what Chris needs, able to read him, to push his boundaries and to take him places that he would never have gone with anyone else. And after so many years, Phil is the one person for whom Chris is willing to shed his controlled, self-reliant, driven façade, secure in a trust that was built even before they finally got their act together and committed themselves to something more than an occasional fuck when time and circumstance permitted.

Phil’s hands are moving again and it's the feel of strong fingers on the back of his neck that really undoes Chris - that curve between neck and shoulder where he carries all the stresses of the day and when touched just so can send shocks of sensation through his entire body, and sends whatever blood is still circulating in the rest of his body directly to his cock.

When Phil replaces his hands with his mouth, the sharp scrape of teeth and soft brush of mustache against warm, oiled skin makes Chris moan into the pillow. Then Phil is working his way slowly down Chris' spine, the slick soft heat of his tongue drawing intricate designs on smooth skin, tracing around each vertebra and Chris is making soft content noises that are muffled in the pillows. The sounds become a little more impatient as Phil reaches the broad dip of his coccyx and Chris feels the firm, moist heat of a deep bruise being sucked into his flesh. But he's really perfectly content that Phil is taking his time with whatever he's planning because Chris still isn't entirely sure what he wants - what he needs - tonight. There's a part of him that would still like to burn off the little residual anger that remains by fucking Phil into the mattress, but he's also really, really enjoying being looked after and it’s extraordinarily tempting to just lie here, lazy and relaxed, and let Phil take control.

“Better?” Phil’s teasing back up to the nape of Chris’ neck, the soft brush of lips interspersed here and there with a playful nip.

“Hmmm…getting there…” Chris has his head turned to the side and twists to meet Phil in a sloppy, slightly awkward kiss that gains heat and momentum as he rolls onto his back and Phil settles on top of him. There’s a moment of wriggling and shifting as they get comfortable and then Chris lets out a quiet, gratified sound as his cock lines up with Phil’s and he finally gets the contact he’s been craving.

“What do you want, darling boy, hmm?” Phil is trailing his mouth down the line of Chris’ jaw now, and Chris feels the humid breath soft against his skin with each word. “What do you need tonight?”

Chris hesitates for just a second, and then lays a hand on Phil’s chest and pushes gently, Phil takes the hint and braces himself on his hands, breath coming just a little less steadily than usual as he continues to rut slowly in the cradle of Chris’ hips and tilts his head, one eyebrow raised in a silent query. With just the slightest smile Chris admits ruefully, “What I really want is to fuck you into the mattress, but I’m so fucking tired and relaxed that I don’t think I have the energy for it.” He stretches, running his hands down Phil’s chest, toying with the thick spread of hair, more white than gray now, but soft and so wonderfully silky between his fingers. “So, how do you feel about a reciprocal wank?”

And they’re both laughing as those long fingers continue down to wrap around both their cocks, tugging gently as Phil leans down and signals his assent with a long, hot lush kiss. Chris comes out of it breathless, but still laughing. “Fuck, is this what it’s like, getting old?”

“You’re not old, Chris; you’ve just had a real bastard of a day. And tomorrow’ll be a bitch, but then you can come home and fuck me until we can’t move.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.” The promise of it is enticing but it’s the aching pleasure of here and now that has Chris arching up off the sheet, holding Phil’s gaze for a long moment, enthralled by the naked desire in the lean, lined face above him. The blue eyes widen and flare with decisive lust and Phil leans over pulling Chris with him until they are lying side by side, body to body, legs loosely tangled as Phil twines his right hand with Chris’ left, stroking slowly along the length of their aligned cocks, setting a relaxed rhythm for them, strong wrist twisting on each up stroke, just enough lubrication left over from the massage oil on Phil’s hand to make the friction bearable.

Oddly this is, in some ways, more intimate than fucking, lying watching each other as their joined hands stroke in concert along flesh that is achingly hard and exquisitely sensitive. They are almost exactly the same height - Chris might have just short of a centimeter on Phil - but it’s close enough that when one is buried inside the other it’s hard for them to line up like this, touching along their entire length, and Chris takes advantage of the position - and of the slow burn that lends him a mental clarity he rarely possesses during sex - to really watch Phil for a while.

Phil’s been sixty-two for three weeks now, but apart from a few extra lines around his eyes and mouth, and the silver encroaching into the iron-gray everywhere from the top of his head to the thick curls at his groin, he’s changed very little from the man who spent nine and a half years at his side on the _Yorktown_. Still lithe and leanly-muscled - for all his teasing about Chris’ exercise regimen, Phil can still manage a circuit of the Academy endurance course faster than half the graduating class - the sight of him stretched out naked like this, or fresh from the shower wearing only jeans and towel around his neck, just like he was when Chris came into the apartment tonight, can make his heart stutter in his chest. They’ve lived and loved and fucked and fought together for fourteen years and Chris is amazed sometimes at how utterly captivated he still is by Phil, by his quiet constancy and breath-taking, yet totally unassuming, intelligence, and by the implacable will and unflinching integrity that leads him to do the right thing even when it is the hardest thing in the world.

After a moment Phil raises an eyebrow and gives his trademark half-smile. “You’re thinking too much, stop it.” Curving his free hand around the back of Chris’ neck, thumb stroking gently along his jaw even as he changes up the rhythm of his other hand just a little and makes Chris stutter as a fresh, sharp spasm of lust fires up his spine. “C-Can’t help it, I love you so fucking much - and I know I don’t say it enough, so I’m saying it now.”

“It’s okay. I know, even when you don’t say it - you’re surprisingly transparent for a smart-assed son-of-a-bitch.”

That makes Chris laugh, the fact that Phil loves his smart-mouthed self-assurance is just one more thing that has kept them together for so long, and he leans in as Phil tugs gently on the back of his neck until their mouths are fused in a long, soft, lazy kiss. Chris can still taste the slightly spicy sweetness of the Syrah as his tongue slides alongside Phil’s and then he pulls away and bites down gently on Phil’s lower lip, before sinking back into a whole succession of increasingly intense kisses; fierce and hard and urgent as the rhythm of their hands begins to accelerate.

“Oh that is so fucking good.” Chris breaks the kiss first, he is the chatty one in bed, and even as tired as he is he keeps up a low, whispered stream of obscenities as Phil begins to work him - to work both of them - to orgasm.

“So fucking good….oh fuck, need this…need you...” The words die on a whimper for a moment as a thumb swipes across the head of his cock and Chris tightens his grip and presses closer until their hands are trapped tight between flat, lightly furred stomachs. It’s urgent now, a vital, aching need to come that spirals out from the base of Chris’ spine to spark and flare along tired nerves, muscles protesting just slightly at the strain as he shudders and whispers again. “Need to come, please, fuck Phil, please faster…going to…oh fuck….going to ….ohhhh fuck coming now…” and he shatters, spilling in hot, urgent pulses, only peripherally aware that, friction eased, Phil has speeded up his stroke until he too is spasming his release into the tight space between their bodies.

Chris would be entirely happy to fall asleep where he’s lying, Phil’s weight sprawled across him, their breathing slowing to normal even as their come begins to dry between them. But Phil isn’t going to let him, slowly peeling himself away - more than once they’ve suffered the uncomfortably painful consequences of waking up glued together - and with a brief kiss to the forehead he leaves Chris sprawled across the bed as he goes in search of a washcloth. He’s gone long enough for Chris to actually think about rousing himself to stretch out to the nightstand for his PADD. His hand is almost there when Phil walks back into the room, freshly showered, and growls. “You are not going back to work tonight. I’ve just got you fucking relaxed.”

Chris opens his mouth to protest, but shuts it again at the look on Phil’s face and just shifts slightly to leave space for him to sit on the edge of the bed. There’s nothing more he can do tonight anyway, nothing that can’t wait until the morning and he just lies back and lets Phil finish the job of taking care of him, something he does so well.

“Fuck, you aren’t arguing with me, you must be really tired.” Phil’s voice is still a growl, but it’s a gently concerned sound and he wipes a warm, wet cloth over Chris, from neck to groin, cleaning off the mess on his stomach but also soothing him that last little part of the journey towards sleep. And when Phil has finally finished and throws the cloth somewhere in the general direction of the bathroom Chris tugs him back down onto the bed and wraps him in a loose embrace, chin resting on his shoulder, as he whispers, almost asleep, “You are so fucking good for me - not sure I deserve you.”

“Sure you do - just remember that when your blood pressure is going through the roof tomorrow - I’ll be here when it’s all over.” And Chris sighs as Phil orders the lights down, curling himself more firmly against the broad warm body in his arms, and just as he's slipping inexorably into sleep he hears, "I love you too, beautiful boy."

**** **** 36 hours later

With the campus shuttle service temporarily suspended it takes Phil almost twenty minutes to make his way across the Presidio from the Trauma Center on Sheridan to the Main Starfleet Medical Administration building on Mason. Called out of an emergency meeting to restructure the shift schedule in an attempt to compensate for the loss of a third of his trauma staff in the disaster over _Vulcan_ , and anxiously awaiting a comm from the _Enterprise_ with an update on Chris’s condition, he’s not in the best of moods. But any thought he might have of tearing a strip off Ruchi Barrett, the Surgeon General’s Chief of Staff, for wasting his time in an administration meeting dies at the sight of the three Admirals awaiting his arrival when he reaches Turnbull’s eleventh floor office.

The corner office has a fantastic view of the Golden Gate Bridge but it’s wasted on the current occupants of the room, the Surgeon General herself is seated at the head of her gleaming dark conference table; to her right is the Chief Administrator for the hospital, and Phil’s boss, Rear-Admiral Aoife Ní’hUallacháin and to her left, Rear-Admiral Telev Shres, Chief of Medical Research. The only other person present is Ruchi herself. An old, old friend of Phil’s she’s sitting closer to the door than the brass and she gives him a look of slightly pained sympathy as he takes the chair next to her and then leans over to rub a hand gently over the back of his neck.

“You holding up okay?”

Phil just shakes his head. “ ‘bout as well as you’d expect.”

Barrett gives him one last pat on the shoulder and Phil leans forward to reach across the table for a mug and the carafe of coffee that has been set out in anticipation of their arrival. He fills the mug, takes a long, appreciative sip of coffee that is both hot and not flavored like the tar he’s been drinking from the synthesizers in the trauma center and turns back to Barrett. “What the hell’s going on?” He inclines his head slightly towards Turnbull, who is engaged in a brief and intense conversation with her two subordinates that comes to an end when the senior admiral pulls up a graphic onto the vid screen that lays out a tentative timeline for the events of the last twenty hours.

Barrett gives a slight shrug “Something bad is going down in SI, they’re prepping to send a debriefing team to the _Enterprise_.”

“On the _Leptis_?” Phil refills the mug again, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that tells him he’s going to pay for this caffeine overload in the not too distant future, and then shoots Ruchi a look of abject gratitude as she reaches behind her and pulls a couple of protein bars out of one of Turnbull’s filing cabinets, sliding them both across the table to him.

“Yes, on the _Leptis_ – eat, you’re starting to shake.”

Word had filtered down quickly that the sudden instability on both the Romulan and Klingon borders had left Command unwilling to let the Fleet’s new flagship spend weeks limping back to spacedock in the absence of a functioning warp-drive and someone had made the decision to send out the _Leptis Magna_ , an ancient Empire class cruiser, to deliver a new warp core and an engineering team to install it. Phil had been wondering all morning whether it had occurred to anyone that sending a team out to relieve the overstretched medical staff on the _Enterprise_ might also be a good idea.

“Glad you could make it Phil, I know things are chaotic over at the hospital.” Turnbull brazenly ignores Ní’hUallacháin’s incredulous look, chaotic would be a decided improvement given the loss of personnel they’ve suffered in the last twenty-four hours, and goes on. “We have a bit of a nasty situation developing with SI and I rather think you can help us with it.”

There are many reasons why Branch-Admiral Victoria Turnbull is the youngest Surgeon General in Starfleet history, and one of them is the ability to make leaps of deduction that give her an almost prescient ability to anticipate trouble and adapt to meet it – of course, her network of loyal informers in virtually every other branch of the ‘Fleet doesn’t hurt either. In this case it’s a secretary in the office of communications for SI who has intercepted a comm from Vice-Admiral Wainwright to his Chief of Staff indicating that one possible way for SI to cover themselves in the face of the shit-storm of blame that is about to come down from Command over their complete failure to recognize the threat posed by the _Narada_ , would be to sacrifice the one surviving captain of the Home Fleet.

“We all know by now that the _Narada_ got through the border protection grids because they extracted…” Turnbull winces just a little and looks at Phil, who meets her gaze head-on, schooling himself not to react. “…the codes from Pike – and those of us who’ve seen McCoy’s report from the Enterprise know that the only reason they were able to do that was because he was physiologically incapable of stopping them.”

“Do they know that?” The slightly disgusted emphasis that Phil puts on _they_ leaves no room for debate as to who he’s referring too – no one in the room is a fan of Wainwright or any of the command staff of Starfleet Intelligence.

“SI? Oh yes, Wainwright’s seen this report and so has the General Staff – there’s no justification for assigning any blame to Pike in the least. But...” she pauses as Phil drops his mug onto the table top hard enough for the coffee to seche over the lip onto the gleaming synth-mahogany surface and holds up a hand to forestall any commentary until she’s done. “…that’s not going to stop them from trying. And I would suspect that’s their reason for sending a debriefing team out on the _Leptis_ – they want Pike to incriminate himself; they’re looking for a scapegoat.”

As Turnbull finishes, Phil finds himself the focus of attention, the others obviously waiting for his reaction, and for a brief moment he finds that he can’t do anything other than lean on the table, his face in his hands, hiding as he tries to ride out the wave of raw fury that threatens to overwhelm him. He shouldn’t be surprised by this, he’s had his own run-ins with Wainwright over the last few months, but he can’t quite believe that after everything they’ve been through in the last 24 hours, after everything that _Chris_ has been through - and McCoy’s report has laid out the physical consequences of his captivity in excruciating detail – that SI is willing to take that twelve hours of stubborn, valiant resistance and spin it into a tale of cowardice and betrayal that will end Chris’ career far more effectively than any disability ever could. After a moment he shakes himself, aware that everyone is still watching, waiting for him to speak and he takes a breath to steady his voice,

“What do you need to know?”

“How likely is he to co-operate voluntarily?”

“Entirely _too_ likely – understand, Admiral, Chris doesn’t fail, he rarely has missions that go wrong, and when they do he self-flagellates better than anyone I’ve ever met. If SI wants to talk to him right now, he’ll agree and he’ll hand them everything they need to flay him alive and lay him out as a ritual sacrifice on the altar of a fucked up SI operation.”

“And that we can’t allow.” There is an implacable certainty in Turnbull’s voice and Phil finds himself momentarily grateful that he’s not the target of the simmering anger that is currently driving the Surgeon General. He doesn’t understand all of the subtext here but he is aware that part of what is going on is a continuation of Turnbull’s ongoing feud with Wainwright.

“So this is what we’re going to do – Phil, I’m cutting you orders for the _Letpis Magna_.”

She holds up a hand to Ní’hUallacháin cutting off the incipient protest at the loss of her Chief of Trauma “Aoife, he’s the only doctor I’m going to send, you can spare me a couple of nurses and I won’t decimate your staff any further, but he has to go.” And then she looks across at Ruchi Barrett “Ruchi please check but I think Sarah April’s accreditations are up to date, yes?”

A brief consult of her PADD and Barrett nods, Turnbull carrying on. “Splendid, comm her, she can take over as Chief of Trauma for the time being.” And Phil feels the knot of fear and tension in his gut unwind just a little and for a moment thinks the relief is going to overwhelm him. He takes another sip of coffee that’s now going cold and collects himself as Turnbull goes on.

“Officially you’re going out to replace McCoy as CMO on the grounds that he’s inexperienced and understaffed – it’s bollocks, he’s perfectly capable of running that sickbay right now.” She pauses to make sure her next statement gets the emphasis it deserves. “Make sure he understands that, he’s done a masterful job, I don’t want any of that bloody irritating self-doubt of his raised over this - but I also don’t want him going head to head with a Commander from SI, he’s too good to lose to a charge of insubordination because he takes down a superior officer.”

Everyone around the table is sufficiently familiar with the young doctor to know that’s exactly what would happen if McCoy feels that anyone in his sickbay is being threatened by the presence of SI. “Unofficially, your job is to make sure that no one from SI gets anywhere near Pike until he’s had a chance to at least start to come to terms with what happened on that ship.” Turnbull leans forward, resting her chin on steepled fingers, fixing Phil with sharp, intense blue eyes. “If you need back up comm me, and understand Phil, you’ve got backup in Command too.” She looks across at Barrett who nods once.

“Oh you have no idea – at least half the General Staff are petitioning to have Wainwright removed from SI and there’s talk of reorganizing the whole division.” She pushes herself back from the table, dark eyes grave and sincere. “Phil, just about everyone there understands that this was SI’s balls up – the problem is, if SI can get Chris to incriminate himself then it lets them off the hook, and of course, politically it’s going to be a lot easier to sacrifice a Captain than admit that Starfleet’s Intelligence agency missed something of this magnitude. If you can keep them away from him for a couple of hours then that should be time enough for Archer and Nogura to take down Wainwright.”

Phil nods once and runs a hand over his face, acutely aware of the incipient beard that’s roughening his cheeks and chin. “I can do that.” And then he fixes Turnbull with a piercing look of his own.

“Why, Admiral? Why are you going out on a limb like this? SI is going to be really pissed when they figure out what you’ve done.”

She tilts her head at him. “You have to ask? Well, Captain.” The formality suggests that she’s just a little peeved that he’s questioning her motives. “I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do. I’m doing it because I don’t want to risk losing a potentially first-rate CMO to insubordination charges or a proven first-rate captain to a political witch hunt; but most of all I’m doing it because if your partner is hung out to dry by Starfleet then I suspect I’ll also lose my Chief of Trauma – am I right?”

She’s hit that nail square on the head – Phil hadn’t really had time to think about that aspect of this particular political fuck-up – but she’s right, there is no way he’d stay in the service in the face of that kind of betrayal and he nods, just the slightest smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

“Yep – of course it has nothing to do with you wanting to bring down Wainwright, does it?”

Turnbull laughs at that. “Well, we’ll just call that an added bonus, shall we? Go on, Phil, the _Leptis_ leaves Spacedock in a little under an hour – your orders will be forwarded to Captain Asamoah directly once you leave the office and I’m going to let McCoy know that you’re on your way.”

And just like that it’s decided and Ruchi walks Phil to the lifts with a hand on his shoulder. “Keep us in the loop while you’re out there. Anything you need us to do while you’re gone? Jericho?”

“Alice came by this morning and took him down to the ranch.”

“Good…” She’s about to say more when Phil’s comm chimes and he grabs it out of the belt pouch. The message is from McCoy, brief, disjointed and comforting as that soft Georgia drawl delivers the update on Chris’ condition.

“He came around from surgery just fine – thanks for the warning by the way – we were ready when he threw up.” Phil winces a little at that and feels rather than hears the slight chuckle from Ruchi who’s standing at his shoulder - they both have long experience with Chris’ less-than-ideal response to anesthesia. But he’s glad he thought to warn McCoy - one less thing for him to have to deal with. “He’s lucid, pissed off and tired, he had a quick conference with Spock and the boy wonder and then I put him under again. Sedation and pain management are a bit of a bitch, bp is low, resps are low, sats are low, his lungs are fucked – sorry about the technical language there, a bit fucking tired myself.” The rapid, almost stream-of-consciousness outburst actually draws out a laugh from both of the senior doctors as McCoy’s message finishes up. “Gotta go, need to check on the folks in the auxiliary medbays. I just heard from the SG – come find me when you get here, you’ve no fuckin’ idea how glad I am that you’re on your way.”

****

A little more than seven hours later Phil steps off the raised deck of the _Enterprise’s_ main transporter room and flinches at the all-too-familiar smell of a starship that’s taken damage – the acrid tang of singed plassteel and metallic aroma of spilled hydraulic fluid, the eye-watering sting of the smoke from a fire in the auxiliary computer core and under it all, subtle but unmistakable, the reek of blood and charred flesh. It’s been a little over twelve hours since the Enterprise destroyed the _Narada_ and, with long range communications finally back on line, contacted Starfleet Command with the startling news of their encounter, and of the destruction of the psychotic Romulan and his ship, not enough time for low priority clean up to be accomplished, and Phil sees evidence of the battle in every corridor as he heads for Medical One.

The _Enterprise’s_ primary sickbay is quiet and a little dimmer than it should be for the middle of beta shift and the extent of the damage that was inflicted in the first attack over Vulcan is evident in scorched bulkheads and exposed wiring and tortured metal, but every bed in the complex is full and clearly the repair teams have done a more than adequate job of getting the space functional if not pristine. There’s no sign of McCoy, just a handful of med-techs checking vitals on the bio-sensors and, in the far corner, talking quietly to a young woman almost completely covered in burn regeneration gel, the Head Nurse.

Up until yesterday, Christine Chapel had been Head Nurse of Starfleet Medical’s high-dependency unit and then, like so many others, she’d been seconded for the relief effort and Phil feels his tension ease just a fraction at the sight of a familiar face among the chaos. She turns as he makes his way across the room, skirting the piles of supplies and broken equipment still littering the deck and gives him that warm, genuine smile that makes him relax just a fraction more and when she follows it up with a hug that is just as genuine he actually breathes out a sigh of relief. “Damn, it’s good to see you, Christine.”

“You too old man – you want to see the boss?”

He gives her a tight, worried little frown. “Your boss or _the_ boss?” and as she raises an eyebrow at him he clarifies “Both, I want to see both of them – where is McCoy anyway?”

“He’s in Med Central - he’s asleep. It’s the first chance he’s had to get some rest.” She nods her head towards the small complex of office cubicles in the middle of sickbay and then glances around to check on her burn victim who has finally succumbed to the mercies of chemically induced sleep as Phil grouses.

“What the fuck is he doing there? He’ll get better rest in the CMO’s cabin – it’s his now.”

“He said he didn’t want to use it – didn’t feel he should.”

“Idiot.” But it’s said with fondness. “It’s not like it was ever Puri’s – or was ever going to be. Wake him and send him up there.” And then Phil pauses to reconsider. “No, send him to me first – then I won’t have to wake him later and he can get some decent sleep.”

Chapel nods and points down the line of the open sick bay to the isolation ward at the far end.

“The Captain’s in there, it’s a bit more private.”

That makes Phil nod in approval, he’s done the same thing himself as Chris’ CMO – he’s never understood why the only private spaces in a Starship sick bay that are equipped to deal with severe trauma are the bio-hazard isolation rooms. There are few things worse for crew morale than witnessing the captain or any other senior officer in the throes of trauma recovery – fever, nausea, night terrors, pain and fear – even the pale, stillness of unconsciousness could spook a traumatized crew.

“Thanks Christine, you running beta shift?”

She nods. It’s so far beyond protocol for a Head Nurse to be in sole command of Sickbay for a shift on a ship this size that Phil can’t even count how many regulations are being violated at this moment – but he can at least lighten the load.

“Okay – I’ll take gamma and then both you and McCoy can get some rest.”

The normally transparent walls of the bio-hazard room are opaqued for privacy and it’s not until Phil actually presses the palm lock and the door slides open silently for him that he gets his first look at Chris. He’s momentarily taken aback at the reminder of just how radically a life can change in twenty-four hours. Lying on his back, propped up to ease his breathing, Chris is frighteningly pale, his lips and eyelids faintly tinged with blue, a testament both to blood loss and poor oxygen saturation. There’s faint bruising on his left cheek and across his chin and on the hand that’s lying on top of the stark white sheet and for just a moment Phil remembers his last look at Chris the previous morning, sprawled across their bed and only barely awake as he left for an early Mortality and Morbidity meeting. Phil had leaned over him then, brushed the briefest kiss across his mouth and then had resisted Chris’ half-hearted attempt to pull him back down on the mattress with a laugh and a quick comb of his fingers through Chris’ hair – and now he lets a brief wave of regret at that lost moment wash through him. Whatever Chris’ long-term prognosis, it’s going to be a long time before they’ll get back that easy, relaxed intimacy – he has months, if not years of physical therapy ahead of him and Phil is probably the one person alive who understands Chris well enough to know that the physical recovery is going to be the _easy_ part.

But Chris’ skin is warm, reassuringly so, as Phil wraps his fingers around one wrist, instinctively searching for the thrum of his radial pulse, gratified when he finds it regular if a little fainter than normal, and he strokes the skin for a moment before letting his thumb rest against the beating artery.

“Scared the crap out of me Chris; I’m getting too old for this.” He leans his hip against the biobed and curves his free hand around the nape of Chris’ neck, fingers stroking gently at the base of his skull, feeling the slightly oily grit of god-knows-what that is still ingrained in all the places that the overstretched medical staff hasn’t had time to attend to yet.

It’s a long moment before he can bring himself to say anymore – peripherally aware of the surveillance recorder in the corner of the room and unwilling to expose too much of what he’s feeling when he knows some SI tech is going to be going over the recording with a fine tooth-comb in a few hours. So he settles for touch, turning so that his back is blocking the camera and running his fingers lightly across Chris’ face, over his forehead and the bridge of his nose, across the bruised cheek and down along the line of his neck, finally leaning in to whisper all those things that he won’t be able bring himself to say once Chris wakes. Quietly spoken words of love and comfort and almost unutterable relief at the miracle of Chris’ survival; a surge of emotion that Phil knows he can’t afford to express to Chris directly.

Neither of them is going to have the luxury of showing this kind of vulnerability in the days and weeks to come when there’s going to be precious little privacy, for Chris in particular. In the in the interests of dignity and self-respect and maintaining that controlled, self-reliant image that has served him so well and so long, Chris is going to need to be armored and Phil is going to have to walk a fine line between comfort and his customary gruff asperity to make sure that armor stays intact through the coming firestorm of publicity, Starfleet debriefings and painful, invasive medical treatments. Weeks, maybe months from now Phil will be able to finally take him home and then, only then, safe within their own walls he’ll take the armor apart and start putting Chris’ bruised and battered soul back together again.

He finishes with his mouth pressed lightly against the soft skin beneath Chris’ ear, breathing him in, the bland herbals of Starfleet soap and burn gel; the tang of some alien substance on his skin and in his hair and under it all just a trace of Chris, sweat and musk, tinged with the acrid hint of fear, but achingly familiar.

He hears the door the moment before McCoy enters the room, clearing his throat ostentatiously. He’s bearing coffee and Phil is grateful once again that he’s been working with this man for the last two years; their ability to communicate and anticipate each other is an immense bonus in this particular situation, particularly given that inter-personal communication isn’t a great strength for either of them.

“What can you tell me?” Phil’s tone is gentler than his words; he’s concerned at McCoy’s exhausted, disheveled appearance.

“Not much you can’t figure out for yourself.” McCoy hands over the insulated mug and glances up at the bio-monitors which are flickering slightly, and then down at Phil’s hand which is still stroking gently against the back of Chris’ skull.

“Damn, I wish I could clone you – I’ve got a couple of burn cases out there that could really use whatever magic touch you’ve got.”

Phil laughs just slightly. “I think it only works with him.”

“Hmm…well he’s been out for six or seven hours now so he should be about ready to come around.” McCoy casts a critical eye over the fluid levels in the various IV canisters embedded in the bulkhead and nods with satisfaction. “He’s good, you’ve seen all the charts so I’m going to go get some decent sleep and leave you alone. Not about to try to teach you anything ‘bout lookin’ after him.” He gives a slightly diffident smile. “Glad you’re here, boss.”

“McCoy.” Phil pauses for a moment “Len.” And he reaches out and rubs his hand gently over the back of McCoy’s head, ruffling the messy dark hair. “I won’t ever be able to thank you…you know that don’t you? You’re a fucking miracle worker.” McCoy flushes and Phil smacks him lightly. “Now get some sleep – or…” a genuine grin lights Phil’s face for a moment “…better idea - go find that golden boy of yours and celebrate the fact you’re still alive.”

That makes McCoy go scarlet and Phil chuckles at him quietly. “Go on, and Len…” He’s serious again. “Stay away from the SI agents, don’t talk to them and advise the rest of the bridge crew to do the same. Don’t let them pull rank – there’s shit going down at Command right now, once it settles it’s entirely possible they’ll have no authority here.”

“Got it…Christine said you’re going to take gamma shift?”

Phil nods an affirmative and McCoy leaves with the promise that he’ll send a corpsman back with fresh coffee.

*****

“I knew it was you…” It’s the first thing Chris says, in a voice that is barely there, his throat stripped raw by the passage of the Centaurian slug, and by hours of screaming and of vomiting up acid and blood as the slug chewed its way through his stomach lining.

“Course you did – smelled the coffee, didn’t you?”

“Hmmm….smelled you…love that smell…” his voice hitches slightly. “Love you….” And falters “…’m sorry…”

“Shhh….” Phil lays two fingers firmly across Chris’ lips, silencing him with the gesture, and cuts his eyes to the corner of the room, mouthing soundlessly “…surveillance is on.” For just a moment Chris’ eyes widen in surprise and then there’s a flash of anger and Phil is unaccountably comforted by that momentary glimpse of familiar spirit.

He leans in, his mouth gentle against the rough burn of Chris’ stubble; close enough to whisper without fear of being overheard. “Just give it a minute, your temporary Chief Engineer has promised us a convenient short in the surveillance system for Med One any time now.” And Phil feels Chris relax just a fraction and turn his head until his mouth is against the soft brush of his mustache, lips resting softly at the corner of Phil’s mouth.

After a moment Phil feels the vibration of his comm against his hip – one brief buzz to let him know that the system is down and once he knows the camera is off Phil’s first order of business is to kiss Chris like his life depends on it. He keeps it gentle, all too aware of the unaccustomed fragility of the body spread out on the biobed, but it’s still long and sweet and infused with every moment of pain and fear and loss that he’s felt in the last thirty-six hours. Chris sighs into the kiss and Phil feels him relax, giving himself up for just a moment to the warmth and comfort of the familiar touch, breath catching at the firm, tender press of flesh.

After a moment Phil disengages, aware that their time is short. “Okay, we don’t have long – maybe ten or fifteen minutes then Scott’s going to have to get the system up again.” He settles himself against the biobed, sitting on the very edge of it. “He’ll signal me when he’s about to turn the system back on.”

As rough as Chris’ voice is, the tenor of it is familiar and powerful when he finally asks. “What the fuck is going on? And why are you here?”

“SI is going to try to hang you out to dry for what happened on the _Narada_. I have orders from the Surgeon General to stop that from happening.”

“Maybe they should.”

It’s exactly the response that Phil had feared and there’s more than a hint of impatience in his response. “No. Just no, Chris, don’t do this now.” He holds Chris’ face, strong hand flat along his cheek as Chris tries to turn away, forcing him to keep eye contact, refusing to allow him to hide.

“I gave up the fucking border protection grid codes.”

“You had no choice.” Fingers stroking gently across the side of Chris’ face, brushing across his sideburns trying to impart whatever comfort he can.

“I had a choice when I took that shuttle and put myself in the hands of a psychopath – I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“Really?” Now Phil is actually a little annoyed, he understands that Chris isn’t necessarily thinking clearly, but damn, he has the best tactical mind in the Fleet; it shouldn’t take a surgeon to point out the obvious. “And your plan B was what? Have the _Enterprise_ join the other six ships of the Home Fleet – that would really have done Earth a lot of good.”

“It would have kept him out.”

“You think? Really? He took out the entire Klingon border fleet – forty-seven ships – how long do you think it would have taken him to just rip apart the border protection grid?”

That stops Chris cold and all the fight goes out of him as he sags back against the pillows. “Then why?”

Phil knows what Chris is asking – if Nero could have blown his way through to Earth, why waste the time and energy extracting the codes.

“He killed six billion people, Chris, he was a fucking psychopath, you entertained him, he wanted to break you, humiliate you, play with you – it’s not like he was in a hurry. Who was going to stop him?”

“Well he managed it. I fucking broke, didn’t I?” The bitterness in his voice is black and ugly, like a physical thing, a poisoned vine wrapping around him, clouding eyes that are already dark with shame and guilt.

“Did he?” Phil still has his hand curled under the nape of Chris’ neck and he’s stroking the damp ends of his hair gently, his touch gentling the rough, barely suppressed anger in his voice. “Did _you_ Chris? Do you have any idea how long you held out?” It could have been a rhetorical question, but it’s not, Phil really does want to get some idea of how much Chris actually remembers.

“No, all I remember is it was wet and dark and that psychotic fucker kept telling me he was going to make me watch Earth burn and it was all going to be my fault.”

“Then let me tell you…” and Phil settles himself more comfortably onto the biobed, left hand continuing to stroke gently at Chris’s nape, the right resting over his heart, needing to feel the solid, regular rhythm of a life that had come so close to ending. And then, his eyes never leaving Chris’, not allowing him to look away or hide, Phil lays out in painfully precise detail the timeline that he and McCoy have pieced together. A little over twelve hours, nine hours of conventional, low-tech torture – from the evidence left on his body they’ve deduced that much of it was straightforward physical violence, the use of fists and blades and some kind of heating element leaving behind an eloquent tale of pain and cruelty.

“And then, from the rate of diffusion of the secretions from that damned slug, we’re pretty sure you had it in you for maybe three hours before you finally gave up the codes.” Phil shakes his head. “Damn Chris, no wonder he beat the crap out of you, you tenacious fucker. You must have been driving him crazy.”

“It wasn’t enough.” And while Phil is grateful for the stubborn persistence that kept Chris alive at the hands of the Romulans, he could really stand a break from it right now.

“Sometimes it isn’t – you know that better than anyone.”

“Twelve billion Phil, that’s what I would have been responsible for – twelve _billion_ deaths.” The _one of which would have been yours_ goes unspoken, but Phil can see the pain of that thought in the way Chris’ eyes slide away from his and in the catch of his breath, the bio-sensors flickering up as his blood pressure starts to rise and Phil slides his hand back along his nape, thumb finding the pulse spot and pressing lightly until Chris settles for a moment, his voice low and gentle as he tries again to calm him.

“But you weren’t – it didn’t happen.”

“No fucking thanks to me.” Chris gives a visceral little shiver and Phil aches at the sheer weight of self-hatred in that brief sentence. “You know I did briefly, briefly consider just slamming the shuttle into the side of that fucking monster of a ship – but the self-destruct triggers haven’t been installed in the shuttles yet - it wouldn’t even have exploded, I’d just have been smeared along the hull like a fucking armadillo on the highway.” He turns away for a moment and when he looks back his eyes are slate dark with anger. “This is why we need the fucking fail-safe – no one should have to live with this kind of responsibility. There has to be a way out when that many lives are on the line.”

“It’s not an equation, Chris – your life for theirs.”

“Well it damn well _should_ be.” The anger is real now and as he spits out the words Chris catches his breath on a cough. Phil reaches for a water pouch, holding it for Chris to take a few measured sips watching the slow burning fury flare in his eyes. And for the first time he feels a small measure of relief; anger at least is better than self-recrimination and much safer if he has to deal with SI. Phil’s leaning over to set the water pouch down on the end table when he feels the quick double buzz of his comm vibrating.

“Okay – one minute till the system is back on. You are not, I reiterate, _not_ going to talk to SI under any circumstances.”

Chris looks just a fraction mutinous. “In case you hadn’t noticed, you don’t outrank me.”

“No, but I can declare you medically unfit and sedate you for the rest of the fucking trip – don’t tempt me, Chris.” Phil has moved from the biobed and turns to catch the brief flicker of light as the recorder in the corner comes back to life and then mouths silently. “Watch what you say.”

He gets a reluctant nod in return and then Chris looks up at him with a very different expression.

“So…”

Ph

il can read the fear in him, the reluctance to voice the question that they both know has to be asked.

“….what’s the butcher’s bill?”

Phil hates it when Chris reverts to 18th century naval terminology, but he knows that it’s one way of distancing himself from the reality of the question he’s just asked. And this time, given the magnitude of their losses, Phil can’t really bring himself to be pissed. He doesn’t want to answer the question, and he deflects it slightly.

“You want to be more specific?”

“Sure – _Enterprise _first, then the rest of it.”__

“Forty-six including Puri and Olssen; another thirteen in sickbay critical care – including you – and forty or so walking wounded.”

It’s bad, the worst single incident losses Chris has ever taken as captain, and Phil watches as the blue eyes shutter closed and strokes a hand gently through Chris’ hair as he shudders once and breathes a deep exhaled “Fuck….”

But there’s more and they both know that the _Enterprise_ is the luckiest ship in the home fleet, no point in delaying any longer, so Phil continues.

“The rest are gone, all of them…” and he’s still tracing gentle patterns on Chris face and scalp, eyes flicking to the biobed readouts as blood pressure and respiration react to the news that six ships have been utterly destroyed. Over 4,500 beings gone, and while even that loss is negligible compared to the annihilation of the population of Vulcan, they are only human and the crews of those ships were known to them; liked, respected and loved - students and colleagues, former shipmates and friends.

Phil can see that Chris wants to ask more, to ask for specifics, to ask after John Mowbray, Captain of the _Newton_ and Cait Barry, Chief Engineer of the _Farragut_ – and all the other friends that he has potentially lost. But he doesn’t have the words for it yet and Phil has too little information to want to speculate – he does know that a group of engineers made it off the _Farragut_ on a shuttle and with luck Barry is among them, but the _Newton_ was cut to pieces, much of her debris lost to the new singularity and so Phil just sighs and changes the subject.

“How d’you feel?”

“How d’you think? Like shit…except of course that I can’t really feel anything below mid-chest and that just scares the fuck out of me.”

“Ironically, that’s probably the least of your problems – you’ve taken some damage to your spinal cord –we won’t know how bad it is until the swelling goes down – you can’t move right now but there’s nothing on the scans to suggest that you won’t get motor function back eventually. I think your days of setting personal bests are behind you, but you should walk again.”

“Should?”

Phil has never lied to Chris, not about anything important at least, and he’s not about to start now.

“Should…you know I won’t make you any promises I don’t know I can keep.” And Chris just closes his eyes for a moment and collects himself before he goes on. “Okay - if that’s the least of my problems, what the hell else is going on?”

“Well, for a start, your lungs are shot, what the fuck did they try to do – drown you?”

“Not drown no, just our old friend water boarding - damn that felt like it went on for hours.”

“Hmm…well judging by the damage to your lungs it probably did, but a couple more rounds with the deep tissue regenerator and you should be fine.”

“What else?”

“You aren’t metabolizing the toxins that the slug secreted as fast as we’d like, and it seems that they’re both neurotoxic and hemotoxic – the longer they are in your system, the more likely you’re going to lose organ function – it’s already fucking with your renal function.”

“Is that why my head feels like I’ve been on a four day bender?”

“Probably, that and you’ve still got a little too much spinal fluid in your system – how bad is the pain?”

Chris just shrugs and Phil persists. “How bad, Chris? You know the drill – zero to ten.”

“Six.”

“So that would be an eight for the rest of us. I’m going to increase your pain meds and if that doesn’t help then I think it might be time to put you under again for a while.”

Phil knows the pain has to be bad when Chris doesn’t argue with him, just lies back and closes his eyes as the pseudo-opiates kick in and the lines in his face smooth out just a fraction.  
When he’s sure that Chris is reasonably comfortable, Phil goes in search of that corpsman with a coffee, persuades him into shifting one of the massage chairs from the physical therapy room to Chris’ bedside and then settles in for the rest of beta shift.

****

The lights dim even further to signal the beginning of gamma shift and Phil stirs himself, checking that Chris is sleeping, if somewhat fitfully, before doing the first set of rounds, checking medications and vitals and having a word here and there with the med-techs and nurses and the few patients that are actually awake. He’s at the far end of sickbay when he spots the black uniforms of SI coming through the main doors and he taps a corpsman on the shoulder.

“Call security and get down to the Captain’s room – no one gets in except me.”

As he walks across the deck to meet them Phil eyes the SI team with real loathing; they are as well-versed in psychological techniques as any psych intern in Starfleet Medical and they know perfectly well that any information they get from a traumatized and psychologically weakened subject is going to be unreliable at best, aside from the fact that the entire process of interrogation could be profoundly damaging to the subject. But SI still insists that it’s necessary to interview people as soon as possible.

“To provide a baseline for later interviews”

“To make sure the subject isn’t involuntarily suppressing anything.”

Turnbull had argued long and hard after Wainwright was made Chief of SI and instituted the new policy that all debriefings should be delayed until after the subjects had been cleared by the Starfleet Medical psych teams. But she’d lost that particular argument – the demands of intelligence gathering outweighing any possible psychological harm.

The senior agent is a Commander, still young enough to think that his rank actually gives him power and he uses his height and bulk to try to intimidate Phil into moving aside when he steps in front of Chris’ door.

“Don’t even think about it.” Phil’s being reasonable right now, his voice pitched low, firm, but not angry - yet.

“We need to talk to him; I’ve got orders from the Head of SI.”

“And I said no.”

“You don’t have that authority.”

And that just pisses Phil off; there is no way the Commander doesn’t know that Starfleet Medical is the only division that can ignore rank with impunity when medical circumstances warrant it. And he certainly can’t think that _Phil_ , a forty year veteran of Starfleet doesn’t know it. Wainwright may have changed some of the rules but not this one.

“I need to talk to him and if you don’t move aside I’ll be forced to involve security.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid, Commander….?”

“Lankeshwara.” The young man hauls out his PADD and pulls up a file. “Orders from Admiral Wainwright requiring all the officers and crew of the Enterprise to co-operate with our investigation.” He hands it over to Phil, who nods, verifying that these are indeed orders from Wainwright and then hands the micro-thin slab back.

“Commander Lankeshwara, I don’t give a rat’s ass about orders from Wainwright, I don’t take orders from him, mine come from the Surgeon General and you are not getting in there.”

It’s at this point that Phil realizes that somewhere along the line his customary pissed-off growl has morphed into something more akin to a snarl.

“You try to talk to him and I swear you’ll be doing security duty for one of the outposts on the Orion border for the rest of your career.”

“You can’t threaten me like that.”

“Wrong, see these….” Phil holds up one arm, the silver captain’s bars bright against the deep French blue of his sleeve. “….these give me the authority to go right to the Surgeon General, and I know personally she is _not_ a fan of SI, she’ll take you three down so fast you’ll still be dizzy when you fucking retire.”

“Bullshit, SI outranks Science every time.”

“Really? You want to go try call your boss? I think you’ll find he’s a little busy trying to save his ass right now. And in the meantime, here and now, I outrank you, so shut the fuck up and leave.”

Lankeshwara flushes with anger, his lip curling. “He doesn’t deserve your protection, he gave up Earth. We could all have died thanks to him.”

The sudden wave of rage threatens to leave Phil without words – but something in his eyes pins the young commander to the spot and, after a moment to recover, Phil gestures behind him to where Chris is resting peacefully. “He was tortured for twelve hours before he _entirely_ involuntarily gave up those codes. He’s the most highly decorated active service captain in the ‘Fleet. You try to interrogate him, or make _any_ attempt to come back into sickbay, in fact you show your face outside your quarters again on this trip, any of you, and I’ll have you put in the brig.”

There’s a flash of something defiant and cruel in the eyes of the young man in front of him and Phil realizes what he’s about to say – holding up a warning hand.

“Don’t say it – don’t even fucking think it.”

But he does anyway; apparently self-preservation isn’t high on the list of talents required of SI agents.

“Don’t think he’s going to be active service for much longer, do you?” It’s possibly the cruelest and certainly the stupidest thing he could have said and whatever he sees in Phil’s eyes suddenly makes the young man blanch and back up slightly.

It takes a full ten seconds for Phil to calm himself enough to speak and then he just points in the direction of the door. “I suggest you leave now. I’m going to patch through a comm to Command - I’ll let you know if and when we need your input. But if I see you anywhere on this ship before I’ve cleared it with command I’ll fucking deck you – and _then_ you’ll find yourself in the brig.” He looks at the two junior officers behind Lakeshwara, both watching the encounter like snakes watching a mongoose. “And that goes for both of you. Now fuck off out of here.”

He waits until a Seargent and a crewman from Security show up to guard the door and then heads to Med Central to contact Turnbull. Even though it’s just after midnight she’s still in her office and raises an eyebrow as Phil slumps in a chair and rests his booted feet on the CMO’s desk.

“What can I do for you, Phil?”

“Having a little trouble with SI – they seem to think Wainwright is still in charge over there – is he?”

Turnbull just grins. “Well, no, The Prince of Darkness was in with the General Staff for four hours this evening and when he came out my spies reliably informed me that he was locked out of his office. Nogura has taken over as temporary head of SI. I think he probably needs to speak to that young Commander that I’m sure you just terrified.”

Phil feels the brief wave of heat as he flushes with embarrassment. “Sorry about that - at least I didn’t hit him. It was a damned close thing.”

“Hell’s teeth, Phil, he’s lucky he’s not in a body bag, I’m sure you were remarkably restrained.”

“You have no idea.”

Within the hour, the SI team has been restricted to quarters and Phil finally lets himself settle back on the surprisingly comfortable chair in Chris’ room – alert for any problems in the main bay – and relaxes, his fingers curled lightly into Chris’ as his hand rests on the soft, clean sheet.

After a moment he feels the fingers twitch slightly and turns to face the slightly drowsy gaze, blue-eyes hazed with narcotics but lit with just the faintest spark of humor.

“Hey, you’re too old to sleep in a chair – go find somewhere that won’t put your back out.”

“Can’t – I told McCoy I’d cover gamma shift.” Phil leans in and, still making sure his body is blocking the line of sight from the camera, lays a long, sweet kiss on Chris’ sleepy mouth. “You need to go back to sleep yourself.”

“Hmm…I will, just promise me when gamma’s over you’ll go back to my cabin and get some real sleep.”

Phil hesitates for just a second and Chris tilts his head slightly, apparently understanding Phil’s reluctance to sleep in a bed that had seen more than a few wild nights over the last few months. They’d taken to staying over when Chris had multiple day inspection tours and they’d conducted a somewhat enthusiastic christening of the captain’s quarters that had involved just about all of the flat surfaces in the room.

“Do it - go think about that night last month and _know_ that it will happen again sometime.”

It has to be the narcotics talking, but the tight, aching tension that has been resident in Phil’s chest for the last two days finally begins to unwind and he thinks that while this isn’t anywhere close to being over, this is as hopeful a beginning as he could wish for.

“Okay, you win…now, sleep.” Phil brushes one last kiss across Chris’ mouth and another across his forehead as his eyes shutter closed, and then curls their fingers together again and settles down for the night.


End file.
